The Shack, the book, the movie how it can heal (or how it can help to heal me)

Blasphemous material?????? Well if that is your opinion on the matter, ok,,but I disagree. Too many sweeping starments made here by some. Of course that is my 'opinion' as well. I believe Sr. Lucia rolls her eyes a lot in heaven.

Peace
mark

 

God has no gender. Jesus uses the Father image becasue it was the closest he could come to telling a beautful, touching story about a Father's perfect love, which resembles a mother's love as well. Baptism is central to all Christians, however baptpism of desire is also part of chruch teaching.

If God is offended on how we protray him, then what about our own protrayals? We often have ideas about God that need to be outgrown. St. John calls it the Dark Night of the Soul. Each person is unique, each is pursued by God, and God knows each heart, down to the very essence of the soul. We can be way to judgmental and simplistic on how we (I think) God works. Beteter to pray for all as the Blessed Mother asks us to and leave the saving up to God, we participate in that becasue we belong to the priesthood of the faithful.......our prayer or united to those of Christ, the love we have for all is his love.....so it is best to leave all to him and to meet poeple where they are at and gently share our faith, or at least plant the seed that will bear fruit. We are not called to save or change others, but to pray for them, help them, and to not push them under by harsh judgments.

I do believe that the shack brings out God the Father and the Holy Trinity relate to each of us, bringing us gently to the truth. God is a living reality not a set of rules. Jesus had to deal with that with the Pharisees, which I believe we all have some in us as well.

Peace
mark

 

God has no gender?
Is Jesus God the Son, the second person in the Blessed Trinity whom was born male. Did He not reveal to us that we should refer to His Father who is in Heaven? And if there is One God in three Divine Persons what then?

 

I think Mark meant that God the Father has no earthly gender. Jesus, as we know, was a biological male, because God chose to limit Himself, in order to become human. For God to be male would limit him considerably ( no offence, men !). We understand "Father" not in terms of biology, but in terms of theology.. the Father-heart of God is that love that can only be known between a child and their father. That's why Jesus invited us to call God Our Father, because of that intimate love he has for us, not because he has male body.

 

On The Shack - I read it when it first came out about 2009 ? I couldn't put it down, and it really helped me experience a depth of mercy and forgiveness that I didn't realise was there. I remember at the time, thinking "this has to be made into a film", so I'll be very interested to see what they've done with it. I hear it's very long...

I believe God will use it pwoerfully to turn hearts that have grown cold back to Him.

Reading some of the comments about it above.. not sure we all read the same book ! There is nothing Blasphemous in it. We could certainly discuss the effectiveness of the characters to portray the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but they were authentic to me. I hope the experience of watching the film is as good..

 

Finally an interesting thread for brother al.

God in the masculine...strange, earlier in the morning (before I read this thread), I was remembering in the 70's they wanted to create a gender-less bible. Now I think about it...how sinister, they wanted to destroy genders.

But this topic can be debated forever.,.thats what makes it interesting. And both views overlap spiritually. Conceptually, we need to see God as Father. But once we are judged and if accepted...God the Father will acknowledge us. Then we will enter a whole new existence that (I think) will be gender-less. I would say souls have no gender but that would be a whole other debate.

So interesting, thank you, been gradually sinking lately. Interesting spiritual debate is always a boost for brother al.

May Gods Will be Done

Note: to brother Doyle...I think you are about to get a whooping. Get your gloves ready.

Let's get ready to rumble

 

My position is similar to you Mac, as I said earlier:

To summarize my approach, I will not promote heretical works that may possess some redeeming qualities...

To date, I have not read The Shack or watched the movie, so cannot formulate a judgment.

AED mentioned above that her return to God and the Church began with a televangelist. In Africa and the Middle East, Muslims are turning away from Islam to Jesus through the efforts of Protestant ministries. And 2 years ago I experienced an inner healing through a religion-neutral empathetic listening session. Granted, myself and my partner, Bill, brought our Catholic perspective and expectant faith to the session. Still, God is merciful and alert to the heart that begins to turn and respond to His nudges.

May all who believe come into the fullness of truth found in the Catholic Church, for to do so makes available all the channels of grace Jesus longs to bestow!

Safe in the Barque of Peter!

 

Well yes, Jesus is a man LOL. If you want to think of God the Father as a big man, ok, but God has no body, we identify maleness by body parts and attributes. So Jesus is telling us that God is like like the most loving of fathers, but much more, as shown in the story of the Pordigal Son.


In Himself, God is pure spirit and is neither male nor female. But Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, besides having a divine nature, also has a human nature and is male. Further, He has taught us to call God, Father. Nowhere does He ever suggest otherwise. In all of the New Testament, he speaks of His Father and teaches His followers to call Him "Abba" which can be translated, "Daddy". For us to do otherwise is the height of arrogance. The field of history deals with chronological facts. It does not have the competance to deal with matters of divine revelation and faith. Such is the proper subject matter of theology.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

Here is an article on this issue:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/july-august/why-we-call-god-father.html

Good question, thank you ;-).

Peace
Mark

 

Nah, I don't argue LOL. I understand people not agreeing with me ;-).

Peace
mark

 

Thank you my friend, I experienced the same thing.

Peace
Mark

 

Wow, you are very good with words, thank you for sharing, for both of them

Peace
Mark

 

Well yes, Jesus is a man

Ok,..so you say Jesus is a man but can you also tell me that he is God?

 

Mark- have you seen the film ? Would you say it matches up to the experience of reading the book ?

 

sunburst,

From all eternity, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, had only a divine nature. Only at the Incarnation did the the Second Person take on a human nature and male sexuality. In His Risen glory, Jesus will remain the God/Man forever! Like Thomas, you and I will soon enough marvel at His wounds and cry out, "My Lord and my God!" Can't wait for that day!

Safe in the Flames of the Sacred Heart!

 

Incidentally... (I know, this is just a book that has been turned into a film. No big whoop..).. when I did read The Shack for the first time, I imagined God as Whoopi Goldberg ( I was probably thinking of Sister Act ) but something about the gentleness of God in The Shack reminded me of her. I am not surprised God has been cast as a black woman. The black Christian women I have known have had a mighty presence of God about them ( I live in rural England, remember, I don't meet a lot of Amazonian black women.). They have exuded nothing but love. I am so delighted the makers of this film did cast the character of God as the author intended, because I think the author wants us to experience the love of our amazing God afresh. He wants to wake us up from our staid ideas and challenge us anew. Don't get worried at this - we can never escape from the presence of our God, Psalm 139. He is always around us.- But, because of our fallen nature, we don't always experience Him. Maybe here is an opportunity to experience Him in a new way. This does not diminish our attachment to The Mass, The sacraments, the Bible, our rosary, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, love of the saints and Mary and love for the seat of Peter, our Pope. But, what if we are missing out here on experiencing the love our God who knew our name from before time began ?

I wish we could, as an internet group, all jump on a bus and go and see this film together and then talk about it over a pizza and some beers.


I do know of Catholics whose relationship with God, especially, as Father , was restored after reading this book. I actually bought ten copies and then distributed them to various individuals after I had read it. Two I know of, returned to Mass and the Sacraments. One experienced a supernatural healing of her body because she decided to forgive someone who had wounded her terribly. Of course, I haven't seen this film and now I am hoping it is faithful to the original book....

 

Yes I would say so.....though in the long run I believe the book is usually better, you can read at your own pace.

peace
mark

 

You judge a tree by it fruits, thank you, for a very powerful sharing.

Peace
Mark

 

I admit,like Mario I have not read the book or seen the movie.
I have watched the trailer and read a few Christian and Catholic book reviews.

Are any of these statements false?

*Everyone goes to heaven even if you're not a follower of Christ.

* You can be Mormon, Jehovah Witness, Buddhist, Muslim or whatever. It doesn't matter to God. He doesn't want to make anyone a Christian.

* Satan and demons do not exist.

*Guilt is bad and does not direct a person to Christ.

*Papa (Father God) has scars on his wrists just like Jesus does because He was crucified too.

*God is not to be feared.

*Jesus did not come to build the church.

*Jesus thinks it's amusing when we curse.

 

View attachment 6530




This is how the Holy Trinity appeared to Sr Lucia.She was given some understanding of this,but was not allowed to share it with us.